Free Republic

SAN FRANCISCO (CN) - Accused Chinatown gangster Raymond "Shrimp Boy" Chow has refused to sign on to a protective order that will allow defense attorneys to receive evidence from federal prosecutors, including audio recordings and video surveillance, from a five-year undercover investigation that led to his arrest, and the arrest of 26 others in March. Attorneys for the federal government on Thursday filed a motion to compel Chow to cooperate, noting that nearly all the other defendants have signed on, and only one other defendant has not signed because of a likely substitution of counsel in the near future. According...

At the beginning of the year, Noah wrote what turned out to be a tragically prescient post about “that other Islamic State” which has been running roughshod over Christians and random civilians in Africa. Speaking of Boko Haram, Noah warned of the following: Recently, the group has adopted a troubling shift in tactics. Boko Haram has pivoted from primarily terrorizing the local population to executing coordinated, military-style raids on Nigerian outposts and using civilian suicide bombers to target populated areas.This campaign is making headway. During that same period, while the eyes of the world were turning more toward Europe...

A key senator said Sunday she believes there are terrorist sleeper cells in the U.S. that could carry out attacks similar to the ones in France that left 17 people dead last week. Sen Dianne Feinstein, California Democrat and vice chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, did not comment on specific threats against America but said other attacks are possible.

The Amazing Kreskin wants to read de Blasio’s mind The Amazing Kreskin will celebrate his 80th birthday with a star- studded bash at City Crab on Monday, and Bill de Blasio is invited. But if the mayor shows, “I will read his thoughts in public, in front of the audience,” offered the mentalist, who admits he’s at odds with de Blasio over his crusade to ban horse carriages. “I only have one fear — I may draw a blank,” Kreskin cracked of de Blasio’s brain.

In a new poll of likely Republican primary voters nationwide by Zogby Analytics, 2012 GOP nominee Romney leads the pack with 14%, followed by former Florida Governor Jeb Bush (12%), Kentucky Senator Rand Paul (10%), New Jersey Governor Chris Christie (8%), former Arkansas Governor and now Fox News Host Mike Huckabee (7%), Florida Senator Marco Rubio (7%), Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker (5%), Rep. and former Vice Presidential nominee Paul Ryan (4%), Texas Governor Rick Perry (4%), Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal (3%), Texas Senator Ted Cruz (3%), South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley (2%), former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum (1%), and both...

Bay of Pigs Survivors On US-Cuba Thaw: 'Two American Presidents Betrayed Us' Richard Luscombe 23 December 2014. It was presented to the world as a tearing down of barriers, a historic moment of reconciliation between the United States and Cuba’s communist government after half a century of hostility. But inside a small villa a stone’s throw from Calle Ocho in the heart of Miami’s Little Havana neighbourhood the talk is only of one word – betrayal. The house is the Bay of Pigs museum and library where the ageing survivors of Brigade 2506, the CIA-trained fighting unit that failed to...

Barack and Michelle Obama, speaking to People Magazine, of all disappointments, shared the disheartening news that they have experienced what they called racism. Barack, for example, apparently has had trouble, before he was president, hailing a cab in Chicago, to which an immediate thought might occur to anyone who has been to Chicago: Who hasn't? Also, Barack, at a black-tie event, when he, too, was in festive livery, apparently was asked by another guest if he would get them a cup of coffee. For her recollection, Michelle came up with a visit to a Target store as first lady. She...

Looking at the vast attention given to this Sony hack, I began to realize today that the media, egged on by Team Jarrett, is REALLY UPSET that a MOVIE was not going to be released. Compare this, though, to the NORKS efforts to build missiles and bombs that could annihilate millions of lives and leave cities radioactive for decades..... You can barely get the media to care.... Same goes for Iran. Let Iran's leader make an untoward remark about society or something.....the media talks. Iran building weapons to destroy Israel or sell to other terrorists to be used against America?...

The Obama administration may represent “Peak Left” in American politics. As a result, what we are getting from the left these days is a mix of bewilderment and anger as it realizes that this is as good as it gets.

There's only one real way to compare military strength, and thankfully the world hasn't had many opportunities lately. Despite the potential powder keg in the South China Sea, standoffs in Ukraine, and proxy wars throughout the Middle East, inter-state warfare between the world's military powers has been all but banished from the global scene (for the time being, at least). For a simpler evaluation of military power, we turned to the Global Firepower Index, a ranking of 106 nations based on more than 50 factors including overall military budget, available manpower, and the amount of equipment each country has in...

Outgoing Senate Intelligence Committee chair Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said on Friday the U.S. is "going toward bloodshed" and "getting into the arena of major" acts of cyber terrorism. "There can be an attack on the electrical system of the United States, on airport computers of the United States," she said. "We're getting into the arena of major attacks. Right now, it has to do a great deal with private industry. But the cost for private industry is now in the trillions of dollars. And it has to be stopped." Feinstein's comments came after President Obama said Sony Pictures "made a...

Once a Constitutional Republic famed for its pragmatism, the United States has lately become a country notorious for its inconstancy, no longer recognizing that actions have finite and foreseeable consequences. In this space, for example, I recently argued that the release of the “torture report” by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence came perilously close to the constitutional definition of treason by “giving Aid and Comfort” to America’s enemies. Admittedly, that was a tough assessment. But barely a week after the report’s release, the Huffington Post published an article linking those revelations with their most immediate effects on our allies....

BUENOS AIRES, August 5 (RIA Novosti) – Cuban revolutionary leader Fidel Castro dismissed Tuesday accusations of Moscow’s alleged role in the deadly Malaysian passenger plane crash as “primitive.” “Accusing the Russian Federation of destroying the Malaysian Boeing during the flight is horrifying primitivism,” Castro wrote in an article published in Cuba’s Granma newspaper. “Neither President Vladimir Putin, nor Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov nor other Russian leaders could have ever done such a stupid thing,” Castro stressed. Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 en route from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur crashed in eastern Ukraine on July 17. All 298 people on board,...

WASHINGTON — Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul said Thursday that starting to trade with Cuba "is probably a good idea" and that the lengthy economic embargo against the communist island "just hasn't worked." Paul became the first potential Republican presidential candidate to offer some support for President Barack Obama's decision to try to normalize U.S. relations with Cuba. The president's surprise announcement on Wednesday was slammed by several potential GOP candidates, including former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, who said it amounted to appeasing the Castro regime. Paul said in a radio interview with Tom Roten of...

Sen. Rand Paul broke with the field of Republicans considering a 2016 presidential run on Thursday, calling President Barack Obama's decision to normalize relations with Cuba a "good idea" since the American embargo against Cuba "just hasn't worked." Paul, a likely presidential candidate, made the remarks in an interview with News Talk 800 WVHU's Tom Roten, just a day after his potential competitors for the Republican nomination -- former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, Sen. Marco Rubio and Sen. Ted Cruz -- slammed the decision to normalize relations as a dangerous move. Rubio and Cruz are sons of Cuban immigrants. Paul...

Rand Paul Breaks With Rubio and Bush Over Cuba Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul is the latest potential presidential candidate to weigh in on policy changes to Cuba and the libertarian leaning Republican's position splits from other Republicans who are also considering a presidential run. Paul told Tom Roten of News Talk 800 in West Virginia that the 50-year embargo "just hasn't worked" and normalizing relations with the island nation is "probably a good idea." "If the goal is regime change, it sure doesn't seem to be working and probably it punishes the people more than the regime because the regime...

Diplomacy: As the Castros rejoice at President Obama's move to normalize ties, extend trade credits, take their country off the terror list and free its deadly spies, the queasy question remains: What did the U.S. get in return? The question is being asked by the more serious leaders in Washington. Marco Rubio for one. "(Obama's) foreign policy is, at a minimum, naive and perhaps truly counterproductive to the future of democracy in the region," said the Florida senator in the wake of the giveaway. "Barack Obama is the worst negotiator that we've had as president since at least Jimmy Carter,...

Fresh off his 2012 re-election victory, President Barack Obama summoned senior advisers to a series of meetings, asking them to “think big” about a second-term agenda, including the possibilities of new starts with long-standing U.S. foes such as Iran and Cuba. Two years later, after painstaking secret diplomacy on separate but surprisingly similar tracks, efforts with Tehran and Havana are in full swing. The nuclear negotiations with Iran continue and are far from a guaranteed success. But Wednesday’s announcement that the U.S. and Cuba will normalize relations after more than 50 years of hostility suggests one of the last chapters...

WASHINGTON, DC -- U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, today released the following statement regarding the President’s announcement to change U.S. policy with Cuba and lift economic embargos. “We rejoice that Alan Gross’ wrongful imprisonment by the brutal Castro regime has finally come to an end, and that he will be able to spend the holidays with his loved ones. But make no mistake, although we are glad Alan is now free, the agreement the Obama Administration has entered into with the Castro regime has done nothing to resolve the underlying problem. Indeed, it has made it worse. “Fidel and Raul...

Terrible findings in the torture report "are not who we are," John Kerry claims. Well, here's a U.S. history lesson. It’s comforting for those whose actions are not aligned with their stated values to believe that what one does in real life is not what ultimately defines who one really is. It’s nice to think who we are is determined not by the things we did the day before, but by the stated ideals we hope to aspire to fulfill, starting tomorrow. In a nation-state founded by settler-colonial Protestants, the argument is familiar – it’s what’s deep down inside that...